ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FEB. 4, 1980

Take Me to Your Leader
By Doug Martínez

In the good old days of segregated schools and railroad tracks dividing the town, the only strangers who tried to hustle us were the baby-portrait salesmen and the nice blonde ladies promoting cookware parties.

But now, as Hispanic numbers increase and our voting, purchasing and praying power grow accordingly, we’re in demand. Fair-complexioned foreigners sidle up to us, buy us margaritas, make small talk about how much they enjoy Rosarita’s beans, and then pop the proposition:

Take me to your leader!

For a multitude of motives, they’re all searching for that one person, that one organization, capable of spreading the entire Hispanic community before them.

There are those among us who may promise to deliver 20 million Latinos to anyone’s doorstep if given just 30 days lead time and a little working capital. But don’t you believe them, amigo. They’re putting you on.

The truth is, we still don’t have it all together. We’re still disorganized. We can’t for the life of us get a unanimous vote that César Chávez, or Ben Fernández, or Carmen Delgado Votaw, or Maurice Ferré is our leader. Or Erik Estrada or Charo, for that matter (although they’re probably the best known of the group).

The first problem is, everybody wants his or her own organization. Lawyers, doctors, actors, journalists, engineers, educators — they all want to set their own agendas. Tired of waiting for intracommunity equality, women want their own clubs, too.

The second problem is, the organizations are growing so fast and accomplishing so much that they don’t have time to get together in one big room and stay there until consensus is reached.

MORE HISPANIC GROUPS EDGING IN

Traditional Hispanic civil rights bodies such as the 50-year-old League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the American G.I. Forum, the National Association of Cuban American Women and the National Conference of Puerto Rican Women are finding themselves pressed by organizations like IMAGE, which after less than a decade of existence has mushroomed into a national group of thousands of members.

There’s an abundance of powerful state and regional groups new to the scene (like Los Angeles’ UNO), joining pioneer organizations such as Colorado’s Crusade for Justice, Texas’ PASSO, California’s Mexican-American Political Association and New Mexico’s Alianza Federal de los Pueblos Libres.

The former members of the militant student groups of the ’60s and ’70s, the likes of MEChA and MAYO, are grown up now, but generally staying active. The student groups themselves are still around, but they’ve added folk dancing to their agenda.

Two New York-based operations, with employment as one focus, the National Puerto Rican Forum and ASPIRA, used the ’70s to expand their influence into the Midwest. Midwestern organizations like the Latino Institute are expanding east.

LATINO THINK TANKS EMERGING

Florida now has several organizations working to unite the Cuban community around interests ranging from commerce to, of course, immigration.

Hispanic organizations within the Catholic Church are enlarging daily, bracing to fend off growing competition from other proselytizing denominations.

One outfit with influence and respect far greater than its size is the San Antonio–based Southwest Voter Registration Education Project. Working in harmony with groups like the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, it has done wonders to open the political process to Hispanics. After MALDEF came its Puerto Rican counterpart, PRLDEF.

The ’70s started a thrust away from pure advocacy groups toward research bodies.

A prototype is the Washington, D.C.-based National Council of La Raza. Founded in 1968 with seed money from the Ford Foundation, it limped along until half a dozen years ago, when it branched into consulting and economic development, offering a D.C. presence to smaller units around the country and culling contracts from government agencies and private foundations.

A Washington newcomer of much promise, particularly since the Congressional Hispanic Caucus still holds its meetings in a phone booth, is NALEO, the National Association of Latino Elected & Appointed Officials.

Unity is no overriding goal of the ’80s. When a common interest or issue suggests it, a network, formal or informal, can and will be formed. An example of a formal one is the Forum of National Hispanic Organizations, with 65 member groups.

Now if you really want to reach the Hispanic community, just send your message to all of the aforementioned groups and the 10,000 others that’ll be writing me nasty letters because I failed to acknowledge their most significant existence.

(Doug Martínez was a reporter with Hispanic Link News Service, He died of cancer in 2007 after a career in government.)